As a followup to Father’s Day, I thought I’d propose something: an end to Mommy Blogging. Why is this a followup to Father’s Day? I read an article yesterday about Daddy Wars being imminent, which of course made me think (a) awesome (100% of the workforce feeling there are unfair demands on their time is a heck of a lot more compelling a reason to change “time macho” policies than 50%), and (b) God, can’t we stop with the Mommy Wars before branching out into both genders?

At the center of Mommy Wars are, of course, the Mommy Bloggers: people who have decided to take it upon themselves to chronicle every piddly thing their kids do (or they do with/for their kids) and publish it. The idea is a nice enough one. The results, however, have arguably been divisive and injurious to blogging in general, women’s psyches, and kids’ futures. Let’s take each argument on a case-by-case basis:

1. Mommy Blogging is Bad Blogging:

This is a fact, full-stop. Why? Because Mommy Blogs are insanely boring to read. Who gives a shit about your kids’ every move, and about your every move as a parent? Nobody. Which is why you’re blogging, because even the kids’ grandparents are avoiding your calls at this point.

There is something fantastically freeing about being able to write about anything you want in any style you want. That is why we love blogging. But not every thought that enters into your head (or your kids’ head) is worthy of being memorialized on the internet. If you want to tell someone about every little thing your kid does, get a dog and talk your fool head off all day.

Quick note: Why, you may ask, are Mommy Blogs so powerful and well-read if they’re so terrifically boring? Moms feel guilty about not doing enough, so we tend to seek out proof that we are in fact as terrible/lazy a human being as we’d suspected.

2. Mommy Blogging is Bad For Kids:

This is another easy-to-prove one. Your kids are probably awesome little people. But even the awesomest little people don’t need everything they do validated/commemorated in order to know they’re awesome. On the contrary, beginning early with a constant need for validation with your kids is one of the best ways to ensure they never grow up. If that’s your goal, great. But if you want to raise confident, independent young people, psychologists agree that constant validation of every action may not be the way to go (at any age).

Not the most interesting thing he did all day.

Plus, if your kid really requires that every meal he eats be something organically farmed at home, then lovingly prepared and presented inside a modified bento box, then you may be in danger of raising a total asshole.

3. Mommy Blogging is Bad For Women:

“But Mommy Bloggers seem so sweet! And they’re so aspirational!” Feh. Granted, some people who engage in basically any activity are nice, and then there are some assholes. But there are two problems here: (1) anonymity exacerbates the assholery (Don’t believe me? Check out Urban Baby’s message boards, on which you will find, as Tina Fey so expertly put it, “some of the worst human behavior I’ve ever seen in my life.” Really. Those boards, which masquerade as something aspirational and helpful, are just excuses for racist and classist assholes to get together and be racist and classist. And (2) the “Mommy” moniker makes it seem as though these people are all united under a single umbrella. The truth is that there are dicks who are moms, and there are awesome people who are moms. Forcing a community out of the name your kids call you is ridiculous.

As for the “nice, aspirational” sites, the problem is that they’re too white-washed. All the problems are so relatable and sweet, and all the solutions are so easy and perfect. Mommy Blogs have done for motherhood what Photoshop has done for body image in this country: it’s taken a problem and made it exponentially worse, simply by whitewashing it too much. I think of it like Botox for the internet: incapable of showing displeasure, lest it seem less appealing.

In the face of this 24-hour-a-day saccharine facade, women of my generation have been assaulted by these constant reminders that we’re not doing enough. The result has been depression rates that are not only double those of men, but also higher than women have ever experienced before. I’m not saying that this depression rate is due to Mommy Bloggers, but they are certainly part of the problem, and the easiest one to fix (i.e. don’t read them, and tell other people to stop reading them). There is no earthly reason why, after spending all day feeling like you haven’t spent enough time on your husband/job/kids/house, you should “relax” by reading about how somebody else woke up, dressed her kids in clothes she made herself from hand-dyed fabric, spent all day wowing her employees with her amazing capacity to be both a high-powered boss and a great friend, then welcomed hubby and kids home with a fire-grilled organic pizza made from home-ground wheat and tomatoes from the organic garden, spent all night painting with the kids, then sent them to bed, ran 10 miles, and blew her husband for hours. Oh, and that reminds me of an important point, all-too-seldom pointed out:

4. They’re Lying

That day above is hyperbolic, to be sure, but it is also exactly the kind of thing that people like Gwyneth Paltrow are trying to market. It’s important to look critically at these lifestyle websites, because it is 100% true that they are great publicity, but total and utter bullshit. There are simply not enough hours in the day to have completed the aforementioned hyperbolic day, and no one should therefore feel bad if they don’t. Even Dame Goop is full of shit. According to her own schedule: “I wake up at 7 a.m., I get [the kids] fed, and I get them dressed in their uniforms, any bits of homework are finished,” Paltrow explained. “I take them to school. She [Apple, now 9] gets dropped off at 8:25 a.m., and he [Moses, now 7] gets dropped off at 8:45 a.m., so we have a croissant together in his school dining room and we do reading together. Then I go home and I work for one hour on all the e-mails that come in overnight from L.A. Then I exercise from about 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Then I work on Goop [the digital media and e-commerce company she founded] pretty much the rest of the day until I pick up my kids and then they have various activities.”

In other words, she works (blogs) for about 3 hours every day, if she doesn’t shower. Also not included in the schedule: cleaning the house, grocery shopping, and spending time with her husband. Now I don’t mean to tear only Gwyneth Paltrow apart, but she’s really the best target, since she’s (a) not going to read this, and (b) not going to care if she does (how many people who have Beyonce on speed dial give a shit if someone thinks they’re insufferable?). But she’s the perfect illustration of my point: she’s aggressively marketing herself as perfect, and is chiding those of us who are less than that to do as she does. But she doesn’t take into account the fact that even she doesn’t do as she does.

Long story short (too late):

Mommy Blogs need to stop being a thing. Which is why I am founding the Women in Opposition to Mommy Blogging group (obnoxiously acronymed WOMB). After all, a WOMB should be a safe place, and a comfortable one, one in which no one will judge you for feeding your kids formula or skipping piano lessons because you’re exhausted after a long day.

So let’s put an end to a competition in which none of the competitors could possibly fight (or win) honestly, set some realistic goals for ourselves and our families, and stop defining ourselves by what has or has not been through our vaginas.*

I tend to harp on things I noticed as an ex-pat that I found superior to American things. Time for a reality check, though. There are a few things Americans do way better. Rap, punk, innovative art and writing and poetry and film…all of those things are things we do really, really well. OK, we often do them better than our neighbors across the pond. Ever heard French rap? It’s unbelievably silly-sounding.

I have never understood how it’s seen as courageous or admirable for women to stand by the men who routinely (and publicly) humiliate them. Because it’s not courageous. It would be courageous to tell them to fuck off and be a single mother. It would be admirable be to tell the world that, even though you find your husband’s personal behavior repugnant and inexcusable, maybe that shouldn’t reflect on his professional behavior. But excusing your husband’s behavior and staying with him? That’s not only weak-minded, but it reflects misandry in its purest form.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for a bit of misandry now and then. Lord knows the bit that lives in the darkest regions on my own psyche grew a thousand times the day my first child was born. While the scientist in me might think Valerie Solanas was technically accurate in some of her findings (if crazy as a shit-house rat in general)–and while I might understand the scientific argument detailing the innate and evolutionary biological imperative to spread seed far and wide–there are times when cold, hard science needs to be ever-so-subtly integrated into societal life. Like the H-bomb, for example: while it may be true (and kind of a cool idea) that one can harness, and then release, the power behind the strong nuclear force, maybe it’s not such a great idea.

So while it may seem I’m being a feminazi man-hater for saying these women who’ve been publicly humiliated should up and leave their husbands, I will argue that I am actually arguing on the pro-men side. Men are, after all, people, and not merely a collective of hormonal and instinctual imperatives derived from eons of nigh impossible living conditions. Living conditions right now may not be ideal (in that I can’t afford for everyone in the family to have a new iPad for Christmas), but they’re not like they were (in that I’m reasonably certain neither of my kids will be eaten by a large hungry beast in the next couple of hours). As such, the behavior borne from those conditions can be modified. And should, if we expect both genders to coexist happily.

To be clear: if you’re into polyamory, good for you. If you’re not, that’s fine too. But conditions of a relationship should be outlined at its inception, and then respected and adhered to equally. This notion that self control and strong will can only manifest themselves when two X chromosomes are present is absurd on its face, and repugnant at its core. And if it’s not, then what’s the implication? If only one gender can evolve-and they’ve already taken on the bread-winning role inaddition to that of child caretaker–then Valerie Solanas was right: men will be outmoded in future generations.

Granted, it may be a jump to say that, because they think long-suffering wives are something to be admired, French women are subconsciously voting for men to be an evolutionary blunder akin to the Dodo. But it’s not a huge jump.

A 1992 passage from the Ron Paul Political Report about the Los Angeles riots read, “Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks.” A passage in another newsletter asserted that people with AIDS should not be allowed to eat in restaurants because “AIDS can be transmitted by saliva”; in 1990 one of his publications criticized Ronald Reagan for having gone along with the creation of the federal holiday honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which it called “Hate Whitey Day.”

Yes, he disavowed the writings before. Yes, he said he didn’t even know they were in the publications. Yes, he said they’re deplorable.

However.

This reminds me of a brilliant email debate a friend of mine had a long time ago. Part of it revolved around whether or not scholarly articles were more engaging if they were more conversational. One side stated that he found a convivial tone more conducive to understanding key concepts, and thought the personal nature of it (pronouns included) showed a more courageous stance by the author to take personal, as well as professional, ownership of the ideas being expressed in the work. The rebuttal was simple (and I’ll paraphrase it here):
Putting your name on the work implies your personal ownership. More resounding than saying, “I believe…” is putting your name at the top of any type of legitimate publication. The implication of the words contained therein, then, is always going to reflect on the name at the top, as will anything opined within the draft.

So what were the names of the publications in which the racist jargon appeared? Ron Paul Political Report, Ron Paul’s Freedom Report, Ron Paul Survival Report and Ron Paul Investment Letter.

It takes something really, really crazy to inspire me to put aside my frantic job search and blog again. I guess, for the break, I should thank Sarah Palin. Instead, though, I just find myself getting angrier and angrier with her, almost to the point of irrationality. But then I realized: It’s rational, and it’s explicable, especially in my current situation.

Here’s the deal: I am about to be out of work. As a new mother, I am in the process of conducting a metric ton of interviews, in each of which I am forced to bargain with/promise/reassure employers. As far as we’ve come as a society in terms of equality in the workplace, the simple fact of the matter is the following: It’s much harder to get prospective (or new) employers to hire you if you are a woman with small children. Period.

And then along came Womenomics, which was such a light for me to shine in these dark interviews. Its claims that women make the workplace more efficient and profitable, and that they do so best when allowed to work as women with family as a priority…well, I can’t say how often I run those statistics over and over in my head while trying to convince employers that flex time is worthwhile.

But now Sarah Palin comes and fucks it up. Why? Because she is the absolute personification of every single bad stereotype about women, and working women, that exists. Let’s run down the list:

1. She’s vain
This one’s a big no-brainer (we’ll to that quality soon, ne’er you fear). A former beauty queen, this chick is the perfect picture of a narcissist. If you need more proof, check out her family photos, in which she always looks radiant, but her very pretty young daughters look alternately pregnant (before Bristol was) or otherwise…well, not so pretty.

2. She’s dumb
She’s so goddamned resistant to learning, this one, it veritably oozes from her pores. Her complete and utter lack of any sort of ability to assimilate information, along with her vocal insistence she shouldn’t have to (since she’s pretty…see above), is perhaps the quality most infuriating to smart women, and most reassuring to sexist fuckwits (hey, Sean Hannity!).
3. She’s emotional
Dear God, has there ever been a woman in public life who made such an emotional issue out of every perceived slight? I certainly can’t remember any public woman so vindictive and petty. To add to the stereotype, she staunchly refuses to use logical arguments against her enemies, preferring instead to snark at them in true Mean Girl fashion (i.e. “Hey, John Kerry, why the long face?” “We should keep Piper away from Letterman.” etc.). The inevitable tooth-sucking savoring-every-minute face she makes after each catty remark is one I haven’t personally witnessed since high school.

4. Private Life = Professional Life
No, I’m not just referring to her constantly trotting out her children as props (see point #1), although that doesn’t help. What I really mean is that, according to virtually all accounts, this woman doesn’t have a professional life apart from her husband and her buddies from high school. Todd attends Gubernatorial meetings and acts as her top advisor, which would be kind of romantic and cute were there anyone else involved in her decision-making. But, it seems like the buck stops with him, which leads me also to…

5. She can’t think for herself
Oh, sure, she can read a well-written speech, but, apart from a script, Palin always defers to someone else’s judgment on everything. Especially her husband’s. Which is just disgusting.

6. She’s impulsive
After the whole debacle with her accepting-then-cancelling-then-reaccepting-then-cancelling at the RNCC dinner, I hoped to God someone would pull her aside and alert her to the fact that she was acting like the worst kind of flighty schoolgirl. Instead of taking the myriad talking heads’ advice that she should just do her job reliably and well for a while, she…well, she opted to up and quit. Publicly. With no explanation. Then threatens to sue anyone who talks about it. *sigh*

In short: She is absolutely the worst version of anything with a vagina. The end.

‘Kay, so anyone who’s not up on the Palin-Letterman feud, buckle in, cause I got a lot to say about it. Here’s what happened:
The Palins visited NYC, and attend a Yankees game with Giul911ani. Letterman, to paraphrase, said the following about their trip:

1. The best part was that they got to go to Bloomingdale’s to update Sarah’s “slutty flight attendant” look.
2. The worst part was keeping their daughter away from Eliot Spitzer.
3. The most surprising part was when their daughter got knocked up by A-Rod during the 7th inning stretch.

The Palins got livid, and released the following statements:

“Any ‘jokes’ about raping my 14-year-old are despicable. Alaskans know it and I believe the rest of the world knows it, too.”

– Todd Palin

“Concerning Letterman’s comments about my young daughter (and I doubt he’d ever dare make such comments about anyone else’s daughter): ‘Laughter incited by sexually-perverted comments made by a 62-year-old male celebrity aimed at a 14-year-old girl is not only disgusting, but it reminds us some Hollywood/NY entertainers have a long way to go in understanding what the rest of America understands – that acceptance of inappropriate sexual comments about an underage girl, who could be anyone’s daughter, contributes to the atrociously high rate of sexual exploitation of minors by older men who use and abuse others.'”

– Governor Sarah Palin

First thing’s first. Read that statement given by Sarah Palin again. Sweet weeping Jayzus on a popsicle stick, have you ever SEEN so much punctuation trying to reign in a pointless ramble (aside from here)?!?! The unnecessary parenthetical, followed by a colon followed by her quoting herself within her own statement. Of course, there’s then the dash, the repetition and artless nature of her speech…the whole thing is seriously mindblowing. It reads like someone who not only doesn’t speak English well, but just doesn’t understand the nature of language and communication (i.e. that it should convey to someone else your interior monologue, rather than just reflect it directly). Now, I ramble. I know this. But in official capacities, I tend to err on the side of brevity if I want to be taken seriously. I mean, really. An elected official sat down to write an official statement, and this is what she came up with. Let me edit this fer ya, elite that I am: “Any time a member of the bi-coastal elites uses his or her celebrity to make light of the tragic molestation and sexual exploitation of minors in this country, I take serious offense, but never more so than when the victim of the satire is my own young daughter, who merely wanted to see New York, not enter the political arena. Mr. Letterman should be ashamed of himself.” KTHXBAI.

Anyway, given Sarah Palin’s total lack of understanding of the basics of communication, even with her precious journalism degree, I am starting my own “birthers” movement, postulating that Sarah Palin was born a turtle, and is therefore ineligible to be Governor of Alaska. Run with it, kiddos!

So, anyway, in true Letterman form, he spent 7 minutes smacking them down, claiming the jokes were about Bristol, saying they were tasteless, and driving home the point they were jokes. To which the Palins followed up yet again, with Todd issuing another terse, simple, but to-the-point statement, saying that, since their 14-year-old was the only daughter on the trip with them, they’d assumed the jokes to be at her expense (truth be told, so did I).

Sarah, no longer to be trusted around the writing bit, responded via Meg Stapleton, Sarah’s spokesperson:
“The Palins have no intention of providing a ratings boost for David Letterman by appearing on his show,” Stapelton said in an email to ABC News. “Plus, it would be wise to keep Willow away from David Letterman.”

So jokes about Willow getting molested really are hilarious. But only when her parents do it. *shudder*

I think I must be dreaming. Could this study really have been done, published, and publicized?
In case you’ve missed the unfortunately named Katty Kay on her media junket, she’s a BBC journalist who’s recently co-written a book with Claire Shipman called (in part) Womenomics. In it they do actual studies (as re-reported by the illustrious Economist) that prove that the companies that employ the most high-ranking women make the most money. More incredibly, they have found that the companies do better if they don’t pretend the women are no different than men in management style or priorities. Their conclusion is that the economy would exclusively benefit from employing more women in high-ranking jobs, paying them equally, and allowing them to be women.

I can vouch that I would have been much more productive these past months had I been allowed to work from home until a spot for my baby in a good daycare had opened. It would have spared me countless hours of worry, not to mention trips to pediatricians and specialists (her unhappiness in the bad environment manifested itself in failing health). Plus, working from home could have provided me a way to work flex hours, thereby increasing my workday and my productivity.

In Spain, this is usually allowed (I encountered, amazingly enough, a uniquely American situation), and actually taken to the next level: applying the same rules to men. Paternity leave was just the latest in what has been a part of the culture. Men in my university routinely take charge of their young children, taking them to and picking them up from daycare, and bringing them into the office or taking days off to care for them when they are sick. It yields an environment that rewards the whole family for being a family, and makes the workers feel more wholly appreciated.

So, yes, it seems like a dream that someone has proven that this method is more efficient and productive. Especially as I’m job hunting. So, thank you, Katty Kay, for my future interview’s talking points.

So Heather Mac Donald, of SecularRight.org fame(?), just woke up in what she hopes to be her own sick, rolled over the come-encrusted sheets to find her laptop beneath all the popper bottles. At least, that’s what I’m assuming must have preceded this type of ramble (via Andrew Sullivan):

It is no secret that resistance to homosexuality is highest among the black population (though probably other ethnic minorities are close contenders). I fear that it will be harder than usual to persuade black men of the obligation to marry the mother of their children if the inevitable media saturation coverage associates marriage with homosexuals. Is the availability of homosexual marriage a valid reason to shun the institution? No, but that doesn’t make the reaction any less likely.

What are the chances that gay marriage would further doom marriage among blacks? I don’t know. Again, if someone can persuade me that the chances are zero, then I would be much more sanguine. But anything more than zero, I am reluctant to risk.

Look, Heather, I’m sorry that the hot black dude who fucked you eight ways to Sunday last night hasn’t called. Really. But that’s no reason to start a race-baiting diatribe, likening black men to the kind of pre-adolescent idiots that would refrain from doing something just because people they might not want to be associated with.

See, Miss Mac Donald, here’s the thing: Regardless of their homophobia (a “fact,” the veracity of which is still waaaay up for dispute), black people are able to make up their own minds. Really, it’s true! Regardless of how many incendiary racist and/or homophobic images assault their fully-functioning brains during an average day, black people can formulate logic and make decisions (an ability that I’m sure amazes and confuses someone such as yourself, but I digress).

Besides, the notion that gay marriage would somehow further taint a notion that was not already tainted in someone’s mind is ludicrous. If seeing a gay couple tie the knot is all it takes to dissuade someone from marrying someone else, methinks the relationship might be in trouble before the ink’s dry on the license.

And, you fucking stupid twat, black people voted in the last election, didn’t they? Even though idiot racist asshats like you did? So your argument’s shit on basically all levels, not the least of which is human. Quot erat demonstratum, you evil little troll.